As we move towards the close of Chicago Med‘s first season, several of the hospital’s best doctors come upon cases which cause them to look at where they will be this time next year. Everybody bends the rules a bit, but when it’s in service of their patients, it’s sometimes necessary in order to keep the disorder at bay. Whose methods will keep them hot commodities, and whose could end their time at Chicago Med?
The Joint Commission arrives to review the hospital’s practices are up to code, which means even if the doctors are stressed they need to stay smiling. Dr. Halstead is desperate to get out of the dog house with Goodwin and the hospital administrators, so he’s doing everything by the book today. It’s not J-Co he has to worry about, it’s the attending Dr. Paratin he angered last week. He’s burned so many bridges at Med that he’s seriously looking for available positions at other hospitals. With so much against him, is it possible Dr. Halstead may not return to Chicago Med?
Reese and Dr. Manning treat a woman for dog bites. This storyline seems very pedestrian and really useless in the story at first. Their patient’s fever makes no sense. For that matter, neither does an otherwise friendly dog biting his owner. The dog ends up at the hospital and barks at only one other patient. Dr. Manning realizes that this may be a case of a dog being able to sense a disease. The dog actually sensed his owner’s Lymphoma very early on. He saved her life. Truly the best case of man’s best friend.
Dr. Choi gets to avoid the visitors by going on a routine ride-along. He’s all smiles about this, until the ambulance responds to the apartment of a hoarder. It takes forever for Choi to even reach the patient. It takes so long in fact that Choi is stuck in the clutter for awhile and has a panic attack induced by his PTSD. After a few minutes Choi pulls it together to get to the man in the clutter, who has an untreated 3rd degree burn on his leg. Choi gets through his PTSD by focusing on his scared patient instead of his own fears.
Rhodes’s patient in this episode is Nathan Clay, a man with Lewy Body Disease, which is basically a mixture of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. As if just having one wasn’t enough. His wife Laura was a neurologist who recognized the symptoms, which were later verified by other doctors. Since the diagnosis she has retired and become her husband’s sole care provider. Dr. Charles believes that with the level of cognitive capabilities Mr. Clay has four years after his diagnosis, he may have actually been misdiagnosed. Clay also had a quadruple bypass years ago, and a portion of the repair is now hanging by a thread. Rhodes has to tell the wife that repairing the damage is now more risky to repair than to let be.
It turns out the combination of the heart medication and a benign tumor on his brain created a hormonal imbalance. So now Mr. Clay could be made cognitively sound easily, but the heart surgery is still incredibly risky. Dr. Downey still thinks it is a risk, but Dr. Rhodes steps in to do the surgery. Downey doesn’t agree, but he respects that Rhodes wants to do everything he can to save his patient. You really see the kind of doctor Downey is in this moment. Some physicians would be furious that their subordinate didn’t listen to their recommendation, but Downey has enough respect for Rhodes to know his trainee’s heart is in the right place. Mr. Clay survives the surgery and it looks like he will make a full recovery.
Now the question is, will Dr. Rhodes stay with Trauma surgery or go for the Cardiac position?
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